


coney island

by potterthepoltergeist



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst with a Happy Ending, Fluffy Ending, Hopeful Ending, Lie Low At Lupin's (Harry Potter), M/M, Memories, Remus Likes Tea
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-02
Updated: 2021-01-08
Packaged: 2021-03-11 22:34:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 4,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28500024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/potterthepoltergeist/pseuds/potterthepoltergeist
Summary: remus lupin is trying to forget. sirius black isn't helping.based on another song from taylor swift's "evermore" because i can't help myself.
Relationships: Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Comments: 6
Kudos: 45





	1. over and over

Remus made the same tea so often that he'd almost become desensitized to its smell. Earl grey, a splash of milk, no sugar. Best served scalding to burn taste buds and old memories.

Something nagged in the corner of his mind, something he kept unsuccessfully shutting up, over and over again. He could picture them perfectly, piled in the closet - three battered cardboard boxes, spell-o tape sealing them half-closed. And he could have painted a picture, from memory, of all of the not-quite-rubbish inside them. All the letters and the photographs and the leather jacket and the record player he privately vowed never to toss out. And all of the promises that he still hadn't broken, not even thirteen years later.

But Sirius had.

Rain pounded angrily at the windows as if protesting their very existence. Flames crackled halfheartedly in his tiny, dingy fireplace as though they were already catching onto the mood. And Remus was biting his tongue, wondering why he ever made tea so hot.

A timid knock on the door cut through his thoughts more painfully than boiling water.


	2. looking for you, but you're right here

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> sirius changed more than remus wanted him to.

As soon as Remus shut the door to his flat, Sirius morphed back into himself.

It was almost painful, looking at him. Sirius didn't look  _ worse _ than he had in the Shack, exactly, but snuggled up with a hippogriff and rat droppings in a cave were not ideal living conditions. His face was pale and gaunt. The hollowed cheekbones and scowl lines made him look ten years older.

His tattered clothes hung off of his body limply, as if there was barely enough body to hold onto in the first place. A gentle breeze could have fluttered by and would have bowled him over completely. And his hair was so tangled and dirty and matted in a way that would have made the old Sirius scramble for some conditioner.

Remus missed the old Sirius.

But this new Sirius, this sad, lost,  _ empty _ Sirius took in shallow, shaky breaths that rattled his lungs. This new Sirius had sunken gray eyes devoid of the mirth and light they used to hold.

This new Sirius passed out on Remus's couch after taking two steps.

And Remus let himself put on another kettle. He let himself renew the cooling charms on his cabinets because he didn't have a fridge and putter around his sort-of kitchen and pretend that everything was just fine.

Sounds echoed from the other room, and Remus was reminded of exactly how loudly Sirius Black snored.

~~~

When Sirius finally came to, he clutched a mug of steaming tea tightly in his hands. Their skin looked worn and leathery, like a pair of weatherbeaten boots.

"So," he said. Remus didn't know why he was surprised, but his voice hadn't changed much from the Shack: still hoarse from underuse.

"So."

Sirius managed a small smile. Remus couldn't.

"Dumbledore's sent me," Sirius said, staring into his tea again. "The Order is coming back."

"Mm."

"Because...  _ he's _ back."

"Mm."

And Remus knew that Sirius was trying to carry on the conversation, but he really just couldn't.

~~~

"I'll fetch you some pajamas," Remus said after a lukewarm dinner of canned peas and leftover chicken from Merlin-knows-when. There wasn't much - actually, there was barely  _ anything _ \- but Sirius had wolfed it down ravenously.

"I can sleep in this, Re," Sirius mumbled, and the nickname that hadn't been spoken in nearly fourteen years almost made Remus explode. "I sleep better as a dog, anyway." As he said this, he brushed black fur off of his ratty shirtsleeve.

Remus muttered a quick  _ scourgify _ to their plates and set them back in the cabinet. "You should still take a shower. Brush your teeth."

And he was disappointed he hadn't tried to fight more, because Sirius only trudged out of the kitchen without a backward glance.

~~~

Remus didn't get much sleep that night. He didn't get much sleep  _ usually _ , but the knowledge that Sirius was camped out on his couch, that Sirius wasn't even Sirius anymore - it kept him up past sunrise.

And then he walked into the half-kitchen the next morning, and Sirius was there, with one of Remus's faded Gryffindor jumpers hanging off of his scrawny frame, the one turned soft and light with time and sun. His hair had regained some of its old shine, except his eyes still looked ghostly and traveled the room as though he wasn't present. And he was holding a cup of tea and leaning against the counter, and the image was so familiar yet so  _ wrong _ that it physically hurt.

Sirius didn't look up as Remus walked in. He didn't look at Remus at all.

And Remus couldn't blame him.


	3. too wise to trust me and too old to care

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> remus has been strong for too long.

"Are you alright?"

The question came out of nowhere, and it was enough to make Remus nearly spill his tea onto his lap.

"I'm- why do you ask?" His words sounded foreign, almost like they were coming from somewhere else in the room. And nothing in the world seemed more interesting than the crease lines of his couch.

Sirius dragged a finger along the rim of his cup. His nails still had small pockets of grime caked underneath them, no matter how much he'd scrubbed. "You're just sort of... quiet, I suppose." All of their sentences ended like questions, lately, which seemed cruelly fitting. The past week had been one long question.

Remus woke up from fitful dreams every morning to annoying sunlight and Padfoot sniffling in the next room. He made breakfast, washed up, puttered around the house, made lunch, read a few chapters, puttered some more, made dinner, read, puttered. Maybe he went outside for an hour or two somewhere in there.

And all the while, Sirius sat in silence, occasionally skimming the back cover of a novel (which only ever told you that it was considered cutting-edge by some newspaper) or eating a few bites of a sandwich. Remus might not have even noticed he was there if the thought of his presence wasn't so loud.

And all the while, the stuffy flat's air was thick with unanswered questions that would probably  _ stay _ unanswered, even if one of them somehow worked up the courage to ask them. And all the while, Remus stole backward glances across the room, towards Sirius, hoping that he would be the one to speak up first.

But now, Sirius  _ had _ spoken up first. And Remus had no fucking clue where to go next.

"Oh," was all he could manage.

"Oh?" Buried in Sirius's tone was something incredulous.

"What?"

"Just 'oh?'"

Remus spread his hands. "What else did you want me to say?"

And Remus should have known this was coming, but it still annoyed him when Sirius looked angry. "Maybe something a little more than 'oh' would be terrific."

"What else am I  _ supposed _ to say?" And Remus was half-paralyzed by the fact that they'd gone from zero to sixty in about fifteen seconds. It was all like a volcano, he decided. Lying dormant and unsuspecting until it became explosive and dangerous. "You haven't spoken a word all fucking week! Of  _ course _ I've been quiet!"

"I was waiting for you to say something!"

And this was the part when they would have stopped to laugh at the ridiculousness of the situation. They would have wrapped up in a hug, weak chuckling aftershocks escaping their lips, and called it done.

Remus couldn't call it done.

"Why would I say something?" he said bitterly. "What could I  _ possibly _ say when you just show up at my door unannounced, after all the shit that's happened? After you just- you just-"

It felt like fissures in cement splitting wider apart, like damaged bricks in a fortress crumbling to dust. It felt like his heart splintering in two.

"You just  _ left _ me."


	4. did i paint your bluest skies the darkest gray?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> silence is suffocating. sirius doesn't like suffocating.

Even though he'd been drinking almost as much tea as Remus, his mouth went dry.

" _ Left _ you?" Sirius cried, and suddenly the walls were too close together, the plastered ceiling too low. "Is that what you think?"

"Glad to see you've been listening." Remus's brows were tightly knit, and his honey-splashed eyes were flashing dangerously. "It's a nice change from fourteen years ago, that's for sure."

"Fourteen- I- are you seriously-" And the fact that he couldn't even get a proper sentence out only made him that much more furious. "Dumbledore warned us not to trust anyone!"

Remus ran two scarred hands through his hair, one after the other, and dug the heels of his palms into his eyes the way he always used to at school. And Sirius knew that right now, hidden by bony wrists and that mop of golden hair, Remus was biting his lip so hard he tasted metal. "So you couldn't even trust me?"

Sirius shoved his tea away. It had gone cold too quickly. "That's not what I meant."

"But you didn't. Trust me."

"I- Remus."

The only sound left between them was the distant plunk of raindrops on window panes and the quiet crushing of their souls.

~~~

Sirius could count on one hand the number of times they made eye contact in the next three weeks. One  _ finger _ , actually. And the silence should have been better, but it was so much worse.

The cover of one of Remus's paperbacks was thin and textured in his hands. He flipped it over and mindlessly scanned the reviews. They all said the same thing. "Author XY's masterful writing brought so-and-so to life in a riveting twist and turn of events saturated with blah, blah, blah, adjectives, synonyms of the adjectives-" The realization that he'd been muttering all this out loud caught up with him a few seconds too late.

Sirius risked a glance towards the kitchen. Remus was standing there - he had been for the last half-hour - doing as much cooking as possible with a wand, a spoon, and two pots.

And if Sirius had risked his glance a few seconds earlier, he might have caught Remus looking back at him.

~~~

The next morning, Remus was gone.

No note, no "hey, Sirius, don't worry, I'll be right back." Even his threadbare coat was still draped on the back of a chair. Sirius almost yanked all of his hair out, his mind running a mile a minute, taking sips of his tea from time to time just to feel busy. That distraction might have proved better, too, if taking sips lasted more than two seconds.

He almost worked up the nerve to peek in Remus's bedroom. For one terrifying, thrilling moment, he had his hand on the doorknob. Except if Remus came home, and if he saw Sirius rifling through his things-

Back to pacing footprints into the rug.

And just when he thought he might be going mad, the lock clicked in the keyhole. Remus stepped back inside.

"Where the fuck where you?" Sirius blurted out.

"Not here."

"Har, har, you're hilarious. Where?"

But Remus was already disappearing down the hall.


	5. i think that i forgot to say your name

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> remus is trying to let go again. it's not working any better than last time.

Back in his bedroom, Remus gripped the edge of his dresser enough to make his knuckles white as he gasped out dry sob after dry sob.

He'd buried them.

He'd taken all three cardboard boxes, the only skeletons in his closet, the only tangible evidence that Sirius Black had ever touched his life, and buried them.

Remus could almost  _ feel _ them, lying two feet under dirt and soil and so much pain, it was blinding. All of the letters and photographs and the record player and that  _ goddamn leather jacket _ were down the desolate road he existed on. They were tucked in a neat row, side by side, under the small, patchy square of wood that divided dingy flats like his from houses of the same notoriety as Effie and Monty's old place.

He hadn't saved anything, hadn't left a single scrap on his stained carpet. But he couldn't bring himself to burn them, couldn't bring himself to watch taunting flames and feel irreparably alone.

So he'd buried them.

And a year ago, it might have made him feel better, but it didn't now.

~~~

After the tears and the aching in his chest finally subsided, Remus pushed his door open again. It whined with a sickening creak.

Sirius was a quarter of the way towards him, frozen mid-walk, mouth open slightly with surprise. The surprise quickly turned to annoyance. "You still haven't answered my question."

"And I'm not obligated to." Remus brushed past him and almost wished he'd said something more.

"Why are you being like this?"

"Sirius, it's nothing."

"You just spent the last half-hour locked up in your room. It's not fucking nothing."

"Why do you have to know everything, all the time, about my life?" Remus cried, clutching his head. "I was doing just fine before you showed up, and I'm doing just fine now."

If Remus concentrated hard enough, he could almost see the hurt rolling off of Sirius in waves. And when Sirius's voice spoke again, it was quiet and angry. "If I could leave, believe me, I would, but I can't, so I suppose you're going to have to do 'just fine' a little bit longer."

~~~

Another three days came and faded into the early morning mist. It was another three days of attempts at conversation and one-syllable answers. It was another three days of scalding tea and adjusting their routines just so that they wouldn't wind up in the same room.

Remus was surprised by how tired of it he'd grown to be.

He sat down on the worn couch and flipped through a book he'd read a million times. The back cover went on and on about it being an "inspiring tale" with "revolutionary themes" and "unparalleled drama."

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Sirius's shadow on the rug, cast by weakly crackling flames in the fireplace. Remus was suddenly reminded of cardboard boxes and the smell of wet dirt.

He blinked.

Sirius only passed in front of him, nicking an empty mug on the way to the kitchen without a word.

~~~

Late that night, Remus wound up in front of his pantry, groggily levitating the two mugs and three plates he owned back onto their shelves. Footsteps shuffled up behind him, and he heard the metallic tap of a ring hitting the countertop. "Can't sleep?"

Remus only gave a noncommittal grunt.

When he turned away from the cupboards, Sirius was sitting on the counter, swinging his legs against the wood, his dark hair falling around his face. He was still painfully thin, but Remus had finally gotten him eating right again, and color had returned to his cheeks.

Cardboard boxes, wet dirt.

"You going to bed anytime soon?" Remus managed, just to ward off the awkwardness.

Sirius snorted a short laugh, and Remus was struck by how much he had missed hearing it. "Not likely."

Silence fell between them once more until-

"Are you ever going to tell me where you went?"

"Fucking  _ hell _ , Sirius."

"I'm being serious!" Sirius frowned. "No pun intended."

It was Remus's turn to snort. "It very bloody was."

"That's only half true. So tell me, Moony-"

_ Moony. _

"-where'd you go?"

"This was almost a month ago."

_ The moon's in two days,  _ Remus's brain unhelpfully reminded him. He told himself to fuck off.

"It was  _ not  _ a month ago ."

Remus pushed his palms forward in a placating gesture. "I don't want to talk about it."

"But Re-"

"I said," he growled through gritted teeth. "I don't want to talk about it."

Sirius huffed indignantly, acting more Sirius-like than he had in weeks, pushed off of the countertop, stormed out of the kitchen, and left Remus alone with his tea mugs.


	6. when the sun goes down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> every ending brings a beginning.

Remus tossed and turned in bed until dawn broke and sunlight filtered through the window. He slid out of bed, rubbing his tired eyes, and stumbled smack into Sirius.

"Shit," they muttered at the same time. Remus gnawed at the inside of his cheek. "What are you doing here?"

"I was- um-" Sirius was half lost for words. "I wanted to ask you if you'd go for a walk with me."

Remus almost laughed out loud. "You're a  _ wanted man _ , Sirius."

"I know that," Sirius mumbled. "I'd go as Padfoot- Snuffles- whatever. But  _ Moony _ -"

There it was again.

Cardboard boxes, wet dirt.

"-I'm going mad in here. Please? Just a few minutes? Fresh air? The great outdoors?" His speech had taken a rather theatrical turn.

Remus rolled his eyes. "If by 'great outdoors' you mean the grass patch across the street, then sure, Sirius, I'll take you to the great outdoors."

Sirius cracked a small smile. Remus fought back one of his own.

~~~

They left late that morning after a breakfast of burnt toast and tea.

Padfoot had grown to look a bit healthier, too, Remus could tell. His black fur had regained some of its shine, and he was no longer limping or breathing raggedly. The pair walked down Remus's street, to the edge of the trees between flats and mansions. Padfoot hopped up onto a chipped wooden bench not far from where-

Cardboard boxes, wet dirt.

Remus let Padfoot stretch his legs out, scratching behind the dog's ears every so often or throwing a bone from the chicken they ate two nights ago. His own body ached and protested with every movement, but Padfoot seemed happy.

_ The moon's tomorrow _ , his brain said for the umpteenth time that day.

_ Fuck off _ , he repeated, also for the umpteenth time.

And when Sirius, Padfoot, Snuffles,  _ whoever  _ had finally had enough of the "great outdoors," Remus walked him back towards the flat with one last glance saved for his little makeshift graveyard of cardboard boxes and wet dirt.

~~~

"So you're  _ really _ not telling me?"

"What the actual fuck, Sirius."

"I just don't see what there is to hide!" Sirius grabbed the book he'd been casually flipping through and tossed it aside. "What is  _ so terrible _ that you can't tell me? We're-"

He paled and abruptly shut himself up. Because they weren't  _ anything _ , not really, not anymore.

Remus pursed his lips. "I can't do it yet."

"But-"

"Sirius, I'm going to need you to stay in your lane for me."

_ For me. _

Those two words echoed off of the walls and pierced Sirius's heart.

"I might tell you, but I might not, so  _ please _ stop asking me."

They fell back into silence again, one that had been tense a month ago and wasn't so much now.

A  _ whole month _ ago. Sirius let his gaze wander to the windows. If he concentrated hard enough, he could remember everything about that night, could hear the thunder rumbling all around him, could feel the sharp winds poking at his skinny frame. A whole month ago, he'd-

Shit.

"There's a full moon. Tomorrow." It wasn't a question.

Remus didn't even bother to look up from his novel. "Really?" he said dryly. "How interesting."

"And I'm going with you."

This time, Remus looked up. "I hope you're fucking joking."

Sirius only squared his shoulders and set his jaw. "If you think I'm going to let you do this alone, then I hope  _ you're _ fucking joking, Moony."

_ Moony. _

It had been slipping out of his mouth all week, but it had never felt more natural than it did right now.

"I can't ask you to do that, Sirius, the Wolf isn't-" Remus inhaled sharply. "I'm not seventeen anymore."

"I don't care!" Sirius cried, even though Remus had new scars to prove it. "It'd be a hell of a lot worse if I wasn't there, you know that. It always was, back in-"

Remus slammed his book shut and glared at Sirius. "We're not in school anymore. We're not hidden away in the Shack. The others aren't here to help you deal with- with  _ me _ . And I-" his voice caught. "I'm going to hurt you, I just know it, and-"

"You're not going to hurt me," Sirius said shortly.

"You don't know that!"

"Remus, I'll be fine. I can handle it. I  _ promise _ ."

Remus exhaled shakily again and opened the book back to his page. "There's no stopping you, is there?"

Sirius smirked.

And it hit him like a tidal wave, then, in that single moment, of how much he had missed talking to Remus.

~~~

The next night consisted of Remus apparating them away to a forest halfway across the country. It consisted of anguished screaming, panting, and the horrifying sound of bone scraping against bone. And even though Sirius was there, Remus clawed at himself. He bared his teeth, and howled at the moon, and relinquished control to the Wolf. But Sirius had been right; it would have been much,  _ much _ worse if Padfoot hadn't been there as a familiar distraction.

And when the sun came up, Remus shivered in the dirt, aching and scratched all over. Sirius stood overhead, clutching Remus's wand and chanting healing spells under his breath over and over.

Remus's arms trembled with the effort, but he attempted to sit up before Sirius gently shoved him back down. "No apparation for you, sir, not until you're in better shape."

"Sirius, you should be  _ Padfoot _ right now, you can't- you can't be doing this."

Sirius tsked and cleared some soil off of Remus's jaw. "Ridiculous. I've never heard such poppycock in all my life. Utter nonsense. Total insani-"

"I'm serious." As soon as he said it, Remus winced. "No pun intended."

"Sure."

"It wasn't!" And then Remus's breaths turned shaky again, but Sirius was there, pressing a hand and the wand tip to his ribs. "Is this okay?"

Remus nodded slightly.

Not a minute later, he was drifting into a dreamless sleep, Sirius's hand still on his chest.

~~~

Two months later, and Sirius was being sent back to Grimmauld Place. He would be back in his childhood home, back in London.

And Remus didn't know how to feel.

On Sirius's last day in what had become  _ their _ dingy little flat, Remus walked alone down the road, down to the sparse wood between flats and houses, down towards his makeshift graveyard of memories.

Cardboard boxes and wet dirt.

It took him a few minutes to sift through all the soil and pull out Sirius's belongings, even with his wand. When the boxes finally saw the sun again, they were coated in grime. But Remus opened them.

He opened them, and he broke down into tears.

~~~

Sirius heard the door gently creak open and close. He heard footsteps shuffle past the flat, saw Remus's silhouette against the window curtains. So, after a few minutes of indecisive pacing, he swung open the door, turned into Padfoot, and trotted after Remus.

The man was sitting on a chipped wooden bench, hunched over three cardboard boxes. Behind him, the earth was dug up and scattered with brown heaps of soil. And when Padfoot came closer, he could hear gasping sobs for breath. Even closer, and he could see glistening teardrops streaked down Remus's freckled cheeks.

As soon as Remus spotted him, paused a few feet away, he hastily closed the boxes and wiped away his tears with his coat sleeve. "What are you doing?"

Padfoot morphed back into Sirius and took a seat beside Remus, ignoring his scandalized looks. "And why the fuck are you not-"

"What's going on?"

Despite Remus's numerous attempts to break the gaze, Sirius held eye contact. "Moony, what?"

"I was- fuck, this isn't how I wanted to-" He sighed.

Realization dawned on him. "This is where-"

Remus nodded miserably, amber eyes welling up again. "Shit, Sirius, I'm so fucking sorry, but I didn't want you to know that I had them, and then I felt guilty, and then I just-"

"Had what?"

Remus gestured towards the boxes, Sirius opened their flaps up again, and the air was sucked out of his lungs.

"Why didn't you tell me?" he said in a strangled voice after minutes of tense silence. "Why did you even  _ keep _ these, Remus? It's all rubbish."

"No, it's not. I always thought they-" Remus let his breath catch up with his voice. "They were yours, and I didn't feel- didn't want to toss them out."

" _ Moony _ ," Sirius breathed, and even though he was on the verge of tears, too, the word ended in a laugh. "All these letters? I don't even- wow, I said some weird shit. And my jacket-" Sirius pulled it out and held it in his hands for a moment before furrowing his brow. "My jacket?"

"What?"

"No, it's nothing," he said distantly. "It just- it just sort of smells like you."

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Remus blush pink, and satisfaction spread from his chest and slid a smile onto his face. "You were wearing it."

"Was not."

"Was too."

"Was  _ not. _ "

"You so were, Moony."

"So what if I was?" Remus said defensively, and the words were out of his mouth, and he flushed even deeper. "It's not like- whatever."

Sirius's smile grew into a real, full, proper grin. "Holy shit, you really were."

Remus huffed indignantly. "That's what I just said, you fucking- and how do you even know what I smell like?"

"Chocolate and parchment," Sirius said immediately, and then  _ those _ words were out of his mouth, and it was his turn to blush. "I mean- whatever."

"You actually-"

"It's the cardigans, okay?" Sirius protested, hiding his red face. "Fucking hell."

"'It's the cardigans, okay?'" Remus parrotted before crouching down beside Sirius. "You're an idiot."

Sirius chuckled breathily. "But I'm  _ your _ idiot."

Oh,  _ shit _ .

_ Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, abandon ship.  _ Warning bells clanged in Sirius's mind, and he pretended to be very interested in a pile of photographs.

And since his face was buried in a box, he didn't see Remus's smile until several seconds later.

"Okay, idiot."

**Author's Note:**

> leave a kudos or comment if you enjoyed! and say hi on tumblr @potter-the-poltergeist <3


End file.
